Generosity, part 2

This catalogue came in the mail several weeks ago.  I set it aside, not necessarily because I wanted to give World Vision money, but because it seemed heartless to throw away the catalogue.  After it was discovered by my oldest son, who has a gift for "rallying the troops," so to speak, all 3 of our big boys became fixated on the idea of buying gifts for poor people.

What I thought was a passing notion turned into hours of pouring over the catalogue, meticulously weighing which gifts would best serve the poor and where the money would go the farthest.
  Marking their final choices lovingly.  The three boys pooling the dollars and coins in their piggy banks to see what they had.  Samuel asking to pull all the money out of his bank account to fund this gift.  Going door to door, educating neighbors about poverty and asking them if they would consider hiring this group of brothers to do yardwork for a good cause.
 

Compassion is always coupled with action.  It is not enough to simply feel.  These boys have a heart of compassion.  I know that Ethiopia played a part in that.  I hope they never recover.

As we move into the Advent season, my heart is thankful to see love in action as these boys dream up new ways to scrape together that money so that their gifts can be sent.  I am thankful to have experienced brokenness in Ethiopia, and thankful for the ripples that are being sent not only through my family, but through each of the families we traveled with as well. 

Generosity.  Not something that comes naturally to me, but I want to learn.  Right now some of my best teachers are three little boys.